Time to Shred and E-cycle

On April 28, to celebrate Earth Month, Sustainable Woodstock is offering local residents and small businesses an alternative to throwing items into the landfill. At our third annual community e-cycle and shred event we will have a shred truck and electronics recycling. In the past two years we have collected almost seven tons of electronic waste and shredded two tons of paper.

At last year’s e-cycle event we collected over 3 tons of electronic waste.

As stewards of the environment, we are responsible for preserving and protecting our resources for ourselves and for future generations. Some of the major benefits of recycling are:

• Reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators
• Conserving natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals
• Saving energy by reusing materials that have already been processed
• Preventing pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change
• Helping to sustain the environment for future generations

Besides, recycling is really just common sense.

Recycling paper is an easy way to start. It obviously decreases the total amount of virgin timber that must be harvested to produce paper, but, in addition to landfill space saved, each case of recycled paper saves approximately 1 tree, 20 gallons of oil, 350 gallons of water, and 200 kwh of energy. Also eliminated are 3 pounds of air-polluting emissions. Those are big benefits to receive for changing to products that are often indistinguishable from ones made from virgin content.

During our event Vermont Shred will process your paper on site. The shredded material is compacted and mixed, making it virtually unidentifiable. Then, the shredded paper is used to manufacture other recycled paper products.

Electronic waste, or “e-waste,” includes computers, monitors, televisions, printers, and other electrical devices. Each year, the United States alone produces up to 50 million tons of e-waste. Of this, only 20-25% is recycled safely and responsibly. The other 75% ends up in landfills. Fortunately, in Vermont, our electronic waste law bans the disposal of certain electronic devices and provides for free and convenient collection of e-waste.

Our ethical electronics recycling will be done by Good Point Recycling (a division of American Retroworks Inc.) which is a nationally-recognized electronics recycling company, consulting office, and a respected expert in “Fair Trade Recycling”. Based in Middlebury, they are one of the region’s leading “e-waste” recycling operations.

On the same day, the Greater Upper Valley Solid Waste Management District (GUV) will be holding a “big” trash and tire collection at the Woodstock Town Highway Garage at 2576 West Woodstock Road from 9:00am to 12:00pm. Big trash is anything that won’t fit in your regular household trash. There will be a fee charged for all materials based on big trash volume and tire size.

GUV will also be selling PRE-PAID “Soil Saver” backyard composters for $50 and “Sure-Close” food scrap pails for $5. For the order form or more information, check out www.guvswd.org, call 674-4474, or see the back page of the GUV 2018 Collection Event Calendar/What Do I Do With…Guide (available at the Woodstock Town Office.) The deadline for orders is April 25th.

We will not be collecting bulbs or batteries this year, but Woodstock has several local retailers that collect those items. Energy-efficient lighting products such as fluorescent lamps, CFLs, and high intensity discharge (HID) lamps contain small amounts of mercury. The mercury is contained within the lamp and is not exposed to the environment unless the lamp is broken at the end of its life. Recycling lamps captures the mercury, allowing it to be reused. Woodstock Ace Hardware will collect your mercury-containing bulbs.

The best way to ensure that batteries aren’t filling our landfills is to make sure they never get there.
Disposed batteries can potentially release toxic chemicals, instead they can be brought to a local Call2Recycle drop-off location. Single-use, alkaline batteries (AA, AAA, 9V, D-cell, C-cell, button cell), most rechargeable batteries (Ni-Cd, Li-Ion, SSLA/Pb, Ni-MH, and Ni-ZN), and all cellphones regardless of size, make, model or age, can be recycled at Woodstock Pharmacy and Woodstock Ace Hardware. Find more information at https://www.call2recycle.org/vermont/

It’s always important to remember that, while recycling helps our environment, the largest impact in your personal carbon footprint can be achieved through the reduction of the total amount of materials consumed, rather than attempting to recycle them afterwards.

Our Community E-cycle and Shred Day will take place on Saturday, April 28 from 9:00am – 12:00pm in the parking lot of the Woodstock Union High School. The event is free, but donations will be accepted. For a complete list of items we are collecting go to the Sustainable Woodstock website at sustainable Woodstock.org, or more information email mailto:Sally@sustainablewoodstock.org or call 457-2911.

Do One Thing:
Join us on Saturday, April 28 at Woodstock Union High School for our E-cycle and Shred Event

This is part of an 8 month long series focused on managing forests for carbon storage and sequestration sponsored by Sustainable Woodstock and theNational Park Service.Everyone is welcome and the workshop is free. RSVP with Zach@sustainablewoodstock.org to receive the suggested reading materials or to learn about the other upcoming discussion topics on carbon in 2018.